“About the faith stone?” I asked.
That pulled him up short. “What’s that?”
“The faith stone, Nar. You see? She talked. The Elven King heard. Where do you think all that money was coming from to hunt you down?” I asked.
He rocked on the stool. “What are you looking for? A payoff? You’ll get nothing from me, Grey. The stone is beyond their reach. They’ll all get nothing because I have nothing.”
“You know where it is. That’s what they want to know,” I said.
He chuckled. “Even if they knew, they couldn’t get it. Maybe I’ll sell that, too. They’ll pay for nothing when they have their answer.”
“You have to trust me, Nar. Bergin Vize is hunting you,” I said.
“Trust you? You got me kicked out by the Dead. I wouldn’t trust you with the time of day,” he said.
“This isn’t about me, Nar. Vize is different. You’ve been making such a loud ass of yourself in here, he’s probably waiting outside right now.”
“Let him wait. He learned his trade at Gerda’s knee. I eluded the bitch for a century. I have no fear of one of her whelps.”
“Think, Nar. You’re practically asking for him to kill you,” I said.
Nar barked. “You know the rules. He can’t touch me here. I learned a thing or two from Heydan in my time. Heydan showed me how to keep scum out.” He leaned in close, his breath thick with whiskey. “I got a hidey-hole so close it would knock your boots off. Goes right to my bed when I need it.”
I did pity him then, a drunken old fool who had no idea the danger he was in. Like me, he had been sucked up in power politics without intending to be. Unlike me, he had no awareness of it, sure he was maneuvering his way out of a simple barter that had gone bad. “Have Ceridwen send someone for you, Nar. You can’t stay in here forever.”
He waved at a waitress. “That one. Another high-on-herhorse woman who thinks Nar Veinseeker can be used. Well, I used her, dammit. I used her to keep that witch away from me for weeks like I wanted, then I laid a trap for Gerda, and she sprung it. Beautiful piece of work, it was.”
“You killed her,” I said.
He snorted. “She killed herself. She stole an access stone to try to kill me. No one forced her to walk into that wall.”
“You set her up,” I said.
He grinned and hopped off the stool. “Damn straight. She’s been hunting me for a hundred years, and now I’m free. Leave me be, Grey. You’re killing my party.”
“At least stay here until I get back,” I said.
He bowed and lost his balance, bumping into several people. “Gladly, my friend. The night is long, and I’m short on drinks. Buy me a drink, and I’ll spot you a tale.”
He stumbled into the crowd, pushing his way back to his booth. I wanted to drag the idiot out of the place, but he would make a scene in the state he was in. Making a scene was against Heydan’s rules. Besides, I didn’t have the physical strength to wrestle a drunk dwarf out the door.
I lingered in the alley outside, trying to decide what to do. Nar was right that Alfheim’s henchmen had disappeared. I hadn’t seen the Wild Hunt all night. Ceridwen probably wasn’t in any mood to save his ass anyway. I debated watching out for him myself, but I had my own spies on me.
I called Rand and explained the situation. “Can you get someone to make sure he gets home alive?”
“I’ll do it myself,” he said.
“I didn’t want to ask,” I said.
He chuckled on the other end of the line. “Right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Curious, I hung up the phone. Rand’s attitude made me wonder what he knew about me, whether Eorla confided in him. He was acting awfully familiar for someone who didn’t know me well.
I now knew what Donor and Vize were after. I knew who they were going after to find the faith stone. By keeping tabs on Veinseeker, I had a chance to contain the situation. Rand would watch the rest of the night. I would take over in the morning. Veinseeker was not going anywhere without my knowing about it.
I made my way home to a warm bed and a hot woman.
34
I jumped when Meryl bolted upright in bed. In the dim light of the living room, her dark shape appeared featureless and unmoving. “What is it?”
She threw back the covers. “We need to take a walk.”
As I was reaching for the alarm clock, we both squinted when she turned on the light. “It’s almost four A.M.”
She hopped in place getting into her jeans. “Heydan said we should go down to the bar,” she said.
I was next to her in an instant, pulling on my pants. “Is it Nar?”
“Probably. He didn’t say. He said we—you, actually—would want to be there,” she said.
I pulled on a T-shirt. “It’s Nar. I wonder why Rand didn’t call me.” She flashed me a concerned look. “What? Did Heydan say something about Rand? Is he okay?
She disappeared into the bathroom. “He didn’t say anything. I was being ominous.”
I put on my jacket and held Meryl’s while I waited for her. “Should I call Leo?”
She came out brushing her hair. “Let’s see what it is. No sense waking everyone up in the middle of the night.”
As I locked the apartment, the security wards Eorla had installed for me activated. The elven essence shimmered across the door, an odd sensation for me since I had spent so much of my life fighting the Teutonic fey. We skipped the old elevator and quick-stepped down the stairs to Sleeper Street.
At 4:00 A.M., the Weird was a perilous place. The late-night revelers had thinned, taking the protection of a large crowd with them, and the more mundane working crews had not hit the streets yet. The hard-core partiers were the only ones out, the ones who had no legal jobs to go to in the morning and the desperate still out looking for a fix or an adrenaline rush. They weren’t shy, but prone to confrontation or threat to whoever stood in their path. They sensed their own kind on some instinctual level, eyeing each other in the street, granting a wide berth on the sidewalk out of professional courtesy. It wasn’t fear. It was respect. Anyone else was fair game.
Meryl waved hello to a group of guys, who waved back with tight smiles. “What are those guys doing on this end of the street?”
I hugged her from the side as we hurried down the sidewalk and kissed her on the top of the head. “Uh . . . the neighborhood caught on fire down the other end, buildings exploded, people died, and martial law went into effect,” I said.
Her eyes widened in realization. “Oh, right. I thought a decent club opened around here I didn’t know about.”
The alley down to Yggy’s was empty, the lone light over the beat-up metal door illuminating a small pool of asphalt. The door clanked open, and someone walked off in the opposite direction toward the harbor. Rand drifted out of the shadows as we reached the entrance. “He’s still in there,” he said.
“Are you sure? We got a sending to come down,” I said.
Puzzled, Rand glanced at the door. “He hasn’t come out. Yggy’s doesn’t have a back door.”
One of Heydan’s rules was that you left through the door you came in. It cut down on games and forced the clientele to behave themselves. No one wanted to deal with the bouncers if something started. “Nar told me I’d be surprised at how close his hidey-hole was. Maybe he has some kind of arrangement with Heydan. Let’s see what’s up,” I said.
Inside, the music filled the bar more than the patrons. Liquor service was supposed to shut down at 2:00 A.M., but no cops ever bothered Heydan. Still, people tended to move on to more raucous venues after hours. Nar wasn’t in sight. We went to the back hall, where the restrooms were.
“I’ll check,” Rand said, in answer to my unspoken thought. A moment later, he emerged and shook his head.
Meryl walked toward a roped-off staircase. “Heydan said the roof.”
“I didn’t know he allowed people anywhere else in the building,” I said.